


Ordered in all things

by watermelonsuit



Category: Star Trek: Deep Space Nine
Genre: Gen, Implied/Referenced Suicide, spoilers for Treachery Faith and the Great River
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-06-08
Updated: 2016-06-08
Packaged: 2018-07-12 16:28:14
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 826
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7113457
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/watermelonsuit/pseuds/watermelonsuit
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>On the origins of space blankets and the Vorta. One and one half scenes unaccounted for during Treachery, Faith and the Great River; spoiler warnings apply.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Ordered in all things

**Author's Note:**

> Title is from 2 Samuel 23:5, but less than religiously intended, Weyoun's "I obey the Founders in all things," is such a Biblical phrase that I had to find something similar.
> 
> This fic contains references/spoilers to some pretty key things in this episode and DS9 plot arcs going forward. Content warnings for suicidal thinking/suicide references; please keep yourself safe!

The Rio Grande is drifting inside dead ice, its unshielded hull creaking against cavern walls just often enough to be alarming. If the ship is inertial, the ice isn't, or perhaps neither are, there's no way of knowing for sure with systems offline. Odo has never been startled by weapons' fire, at least in every Weyoun's knowledge through this present, but something about the sound of ice scraping against the damaged runabout disturbs him, this Weyoun can tell. He had never considered whether changelings could shiver. He always thought their forms too stable, their godhood too secure, but then the Founders, now... well, changelings are ever-changing, that's as true and constant as the Great Link might be, or might have been before the contagion.

Even when the noise dies down, Odo keeps fidgeting, preoccupied. He begins to pace. Before Weyoun thinks to ask why, Odo has disappeared into the back of the runabout. Weyoun's eyes follow him. Changelings can be so inscrutable: what could he have, a replicator for food he doesn't eat, a weapon stowed away, a shut-down system to reconfigure, a new plan? 

Odo returns instead with a thermal blanket that he folds around Weyoun, who realizes his trembling is worse than Odo's. The material around his shoulders crackles like fire, though it's hardly as warm. It's an awkward gesture for Odo but it's an honor, a mercy so humble that no other Founder would grant it to him, nor to any Vorta. His faith has guided him here, to Odo, away from the Dominion, for good reason.

"Thank you," Weyoun whispers when he can bear to speak.

Odo harrumphs and doesn't look up from the helm. "You wouldn't have gotten it for yourself."

"You should have it."

"No." Odo shifts.

"I'm only your prisoner."

"I don't torture prisoners."

 _How?_ Weyoun thinks. Without interrogation, without torture, with, instead, refuge and this shining cloak that the Federation calls a blanket, he feels hardly like a prisoner of this changeling, perhaps almost an equal--? No, he can't tolerate such delusions. It's a gift, a debt. But when they break free of the ice and escape, Odo might protect him. He said as much in regard to debriefing. If they make it home (imagine, the Alpha Quadrant and the Federation as your home when you are a Founder, what you must deny to call yourself a security officer) _if_ they escape, it will be an unpayable debt.

 

* * *

 

There's something in changelings and solids alike that resists becoming ice. Weyoun grows drowsy with the bitter cold, though he can't sleep. It would be _excellent_ , he thinks, if he could wake up to the engines running and the heat on; Weyoun, ship, and Odo flung far away from the Jem'Hadar, but that's a fantasy. Even to dream of it could be a relief. Just to sleep a little.

And yet sleep won't come when his bones ache and there's an icy, metallic pain wired into his nervous system. Another reminder to the Vorta, as much as the hunger a full stomach can't dispel. When Odo looks away, Weyoun traces the mandibular implant with a numb finger. Every clone is given the same instructions: there's an implant behind the right ear, near the back of the head. It switches forward, toward the second implant in the jaw. Press the first, then press the second one. It must be encoded in the Vorta by now, and the line remembers; regardless, each new Weyoun is told again upon activation. The sixth used to fear merely thinking of it, as though it could set off a bomb, but now the mechanism makes sense. It makes sense in his head, a little joke Weyoun has when this thinking overtakes him: _first implant switches forward, switch on first implant then press second implant. It makes sense in your head!_ The seventh Weyoun would be delighted if he knew how tiresome his defective predecessor found these thoughts.

 _It makes sense_ like nothing has made sense since Weyoun contacted Odo. Only hours ago everything felt right for the first time. He thought Odo would protect him. How foolish: the Founders are dying, their mercenaries are firing blind on one of their gods. How can a god live to contend with the extinction of his kind and protect a defective, hunted Vorta?

 _Live to serve_ , Weyoun reminds himself. The Vorta are not like the Jem'Hadar. His forebearers didn't protect a changeling expecting anything in return. _Live only to serve_. The Vorta's survival is a gift well understood as a debt. To repay that debt--Weyoun takes as deep a breath as the freezing, thin air in the runabout will afford him, a shallow limit Weyoun is too cold to resent. _You can end this when you have to._  When, not if. You have to.

It makes sense, even after the heat returns and the hunt is back on. But it will take Odo a long time to understand.

 

 


End file.
